1 - Socially Engaged Art in Post-Colonial Hong Kong and Southeast Asia (SEA)

The presentation reports the results of the research and exhibition project on Socially Engaged Art (S.E.A.) in Post-Colonial Hong Kong and Southeast Asia. Eight Southeast Asia researchers were invited to conduct case studies on S.E.A. in Cambodia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. An exhibition was held (May 2022) to showcase the case studies at the Academy of Visual Arts, Hong Kong Baptist University. These case studies complement theoretical discourses and are crucial for collecting empirical evidence. The research was neither an encyclopaedic survey of the field, a chronicle of art history, nor a comprehensive analysis of artists or collectives who initiated the case studies of S.E.A. projects. Instead, it aimed to create a context that registered the radically different yet similar sites of production and reception of the field. The exhibition complemented the research and was a means of visual art research, enabled data from various mediums to be merged, offered multifocal narratives of how these projects evolved, and interacted with the communities. It was a platform that allowed the researchers and the research subjects to re-visit the materials and select some of the most representative images, objects, and texts to reflect upon the merits and limitations of the projects. In addition, an online symposium was held to encourage intellectual discussions on how artistic aspirations would interact with social-political conditions. The seminar was a dissemination channel and an opportunity for the presenters and participants to reconsider socially engaged creative means and the correlation between art and society.